Rights Advocates Suing U.N. Over the Spread of Cholera in Haiti
Advocates for Haitian victims of the deadly cholera epidemic that first afflicted their country three years ago said they were taking the extraordinary step on Wednesday of suing the United Nations, asserting that the organization’s peacekeeping force in Haiti was responsible for introducing the disease through sewage contamination from its barracks
The lawsuit, which the advocates said they would file in Federal
District Court in Manhattan on Wednesday morning, will be the strongest
action they have taken in pressing the United Nations to acknowledge at
least some culpability for the outbreak of cholera, a highly contagious
scourge spread through human feces that had been largely absent from
Haiti for 100 years.
Cholera has killed more than 8,300 Haitians and sickened more than
650,000 in the earthquake-ravaged country, the poorest in the Western
Hemisphere, since it first reappeared in October 2010. While the worst
of the epidemic has eased, it still kills about 1,000 Haitians a year.
United Nations officials have said they are committed to eradicating the
cholera, but they have not conceded that the organization was
inadvertently responsible for causing it. They also have asserted
diplomatic immunity from any negligence claims, a position that has
deeply angered many Haitians who consider it a betrayal of United
Nations principles.
Haitian leaders, while dependent on the United Nations to help maintain
stability and provide other important services, have also expressed
unhappiness over the cholera issue. In an address
last Thursday at the annual United Nations General Assembly opening
session, Haiti’s prime minister, Laurent Lamothe, spoke of what he
called the “moral responsibility” of the United Nations in the outbreak,
and said the efforts to combat it had been far from sufficient.
Forensic studies, including one ordered by the United Nations, have
identified the culprit bacteria as an Asian strain imported to Haiti by
Nepalese members of the United Nations peacekeeping force, known as the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti,
which was first authorized in 2004 and maintains about 8,700 soldiers
and police officers there, drawn from more than three dozen member
states. The forensic studies have also linked the spread of the cholera to a flawed sanitation system
at the Nepalese peacekeeper base, which contaminated a tributary that
feeds Haiti’s largest river, used by Haitians for drinking and bathing.
Beatrice Lindstrom, a spokeswoman for the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti,
the Boston-based rights group that prepared the lawsuit, said in a
telephone interview that the listed plaintiffs were five cholera
victims, who were seeking redress for themselves and all afflicted
Haitians and their families. Ms. Lindstrom said the institute had
decided to file the suit in New York because it is the site of United
Nations headquarters and has an enormous Haitian expatriate population.
“We are asking for the judge to find the United Nations liable,” she
said. “It has violated its legal obligations through reckless actions
that brought cholera to Haiti.” The lawsuit did not specify the amount
of compensation sought, which Ms. Lindstrom said would be “determined at
trial.”
It was far from clear that the lawsuit would be accepted by the court,
which affords broad latitude to diplomatic protections for the United
Nations against such litigation. These protections are partly rooted in
the formal legal conventions created with the inception of the United
Nations after World War II. “The majority view is that the U.N. and U.N.
entities are immune from domestic lawsuits,” said Jordan J. Paust, a
professor of international law at the Law Center of the University of
Houston.
Eight months ago, Ban Ki-moon, the secretary general of the United Nations, informed Haitian leaders
that it would not accept claims for compensation made by victims of the
outbreak, citing a provision of the Convention on the Privileges and
Immunities of the United Nations.
Ms. Lindstrom said the United Nations had also rebuffed her group’s
attempts to address the issue. “They’ve refused to sit down for a
conversation with the victims, or with us,” she said.
Navi Pillay, the top human rights official at the United Nations,
suggested on Tuesday from her headquarters in Geneva that Haiti’s
cholera victims were entitled to some compensation, although she did not
specify who should provide it.
Farhan Haq, a spokesman for Mr. Ban, declined to comment on the lawsuit
but asserted that the United Nations remained dedicated to helping Haiti
overcome the epidemic.
“The United Nations is working on the ground with the government and
people of Haiti both to provide immediate and practical assistance to
those affected,” Mr. Haq said in a statement, “and to put in place
better infrastructure and services for all.”
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